On the Couch: Thanksgiving Movies

By Kelsey Miller

Hey there, fellow Americans. Since I image that you’re all hiding out in your grandparents’ guest bathrooms right about now, seeking refuge by reading this post on the last bar of service your weary phone can hang on to—I’ll keep this brief. Maybe your Thanksgiving was awesome. Maybe your family is one big bundle of fun and functionality and every time you get together it’s just the best. Fine, but frankly, I don’t care about you. This is for the rest of us, who I’m pretty sure are having a panic attack right now. To these, I say: it ain’t so bad. Oh, I’m sure it’s sucking pretty hard right now, but it can always be worse. See: all Thanksgiving-set movies, ever. More importantly, see these five. I guarantee they’ll brighten up your Thursday—or at least the next ninety minutes.

The Ice Storm

Your parents are contractually obligated to be a serious pain in the neck this weekend. Between all the leftover-pushing and questions about your non-existent 401(k), and wondering if maybe you could finally go through that box of YA fiction that’s taking up room in dad’s new home gym, you’re probably wishing they’d go out and do something. But remember, as long as they’re home hassling you, they’re not out at a key party. For that, we can all be thankful.

The House of Yes

The holidays are all about making family memories. For example, remember the time you brought your new girlfriend home to meet your insane mother, pathological little brother, and homicidal sister with whom you may or may not still have a deeply perverse sexual relationship? Oh, that never happened? LUCKY YOU.

Hannah and Her Sisters

This may be one of the most beloved films of Woody Allen’s career, if not of all time. It may be warm and funny, and tell the story of a multitalented family and its various adventures throughout New York City’s most magical, well-scored neighborhoods. But take out all that movie magic, and it’s just a bunch of lying, cheating, public-cocaine-snorting jerks that cannot stop sleeping with each other’s spouses. Hannah’s okay, but her sisters all suck.

Pieces of April

Nothing like spending all day cooking for your estranged family and dying mother, in the vague hope that perhaps there’s a chance for reconciliation, or at least a level of mutual acceptance. You’re running all over the East Village for a place to park your turkey, you’re seeking advice from eccentric neighbors, you’re wearing your best cut-offs, only to have the fam drive up, take one look at your crusty front door, and decide they don’t love you enough to handle the three-story walk up. They’d rather hit the diner.

Home For The Holidays

Nothing particularly exceptional happens in this film—no key parties, or re-enacted Kennedy assassinations—just the kind of stuff that happens at most Thanksgivings: the old folks are older and it’s sad, you’re alienated from your siblings and it’s sad, and your life is flying by at such a rapid pace that you don’t even have time to be sad about it so you just get high in your childhood bedroom. And that’s pretty sad too.

Mailbag

Need a good scream? Got an un-fixable problem? Or some really good gossip? I’m listening!

I live in NYC and got fat during the hurricane. Should I just come to terms with it, or suck it up and go to the gym?

Sincerely,

Chubs

Dear Join The Club,

Hey, fellow fatty. You may be kinda pudgy these days, but you are not alone. My personal plan is just to roll with it through the holidays and not let anyone take pictures of me this year. Get back to me in 2013.